258 Wild Bird Guests 



restrain the true sportsman when his reason 

 and sense of justice tell him that a law is inade- 

 quate. They are often selfish and inconsiderate. 

 How unfair it seems when we realize that if you 

 and I own farms adjoining a third farm owned 

 by one of these men, and if there are thirty 

 quail on the three farms, he can take his gun 

 and shoot, not only his ten, but your ten and my 

 ten as well, in spite of our earnest protests. 

 Surely we have as much right to our share of 

 these birds alive as he has to his share dead, 

 especially as the living quail are performing 

 valuable service for the community, and are 

 the ones from which future generations of quail 

 would come. But we're not allowed to have 

 them alive. If we want them at all, we must 

 take a gun and kill them — and kill them soon — 

 before our neighbor, the self-styled sportsman, 

 can get them. 



Looking at the matter from another stand- 

 point, it is dishonest to cause our wild birds to 

 diminish in numbers or to permit others to cause 

 such diminution. In the wild birds, our ancestors 

 have left us a valuable property, which, if we 

 are honest, we shall pass on undiminished to the 

 next generation. In the matter of game birds, 

 we are perhaps entitled to the interest — that is, 

 the increase, but not one bird more; we cannot 



